1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a system for digitizing color video signals and, more particularly, to a system which utilizes a red/green/blue camera to detect and digitize the color hues of a homogeneous substance in order to perform an analysis, even an analyzed chemical of the homogeneous substance on a real time basis.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Real time analysis and process control of a homogeneous substance such as a metallurgical stream is presently not possible due to the lack of sensors capable of performing the required on-line analysis. Today, samples must be removed from the process stream and sent to nearby instrumentation or laboratory facilities where they are mixed with reagents and diluted before metal concentration can be discerned with typical analytical equipment such as atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS) or inductively-coupled plasma spectrophotometry (ICP). Only after laboratory results are obtained may process parameters be adjusted to optimize metal recovery. Ideally, an on-line instrumentation system would analyze solutions directly in-stream without dilution or other modifications.
One way to perform an on-line analytical analysis of a metallurgical stream to determine metal concentration would be to quantify a color video image of the metallurgical stream and correlate the various colors in the color image to the metal concentration. Unfortunately, although systems are presently available with gray scales to capture and retrieve color from video, none of these systems utilizes an actual color image capturing and analysis scheme. For example, frame grabbers currently available are operable to capture gray scale from video. However, frame grabbers require numerical analysis of analytical algorithms to characterize the color and are slow and processor intensive. Also, the color resolution is limited to 127 steps for the standard Y/U/V 4/1/1 format.
United States patents pertaining to video analysis are concerned with image analysis and manipulation/decoding of composite (NTSC or PAL) video signals and do not address actual color image capturing systems (see U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,212,544; 5,194,940; 5,164,998; 5,166,780; 5,146,317 and 5,031,224). U.S. Pat. No. 5,187,567 describes how this manipulation/decoding is done with filters. U.S. Pat. No. 4,797,738 describes taking a photograph of an NTSC video signal and analyzing it for color, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,150,199 describes a method for mathematically determining R/G/B color regression analysis to fit a standard color model.
As can be seen from the foregoing, although systems and processes both commercially available and described in issued U.S. patents may be utilized to perform image analysis and manipulation/decoding of composite video signals, none of these presently known systems and processes are capable of performing an on-line or real time analysis of the color video image of a homogeneous substance such as a metallurgical stream to determine metal concentration.
Consequently, there is a need for a system which is capable of quantifying a video image and analyzing the color hues or components of the video image. Such a system could be used in a metallurgical stream to determine the concentration of metal in the stream.